Merge enchant weapon and enchant armor scrolls

[tasonir]

Now that they are both guarenteed to work, and always increase the item by +1, they should simply be the same item. Scroll of enchantment, or some similar name. This has two benefits:

1) less inventory clutter by removing an item from the game, less for newbies to learn
2) Creates interesting choices between focusing your character on offense or defense. Rather than having the game decide if you can get a +10 plate, you can voluntarily give up enchanting your weapon (or enchant it fewer times, enchant less types of weapons, etc) to make sure all of your armor is maximally enchanted.

Possible balance issue: If a player ends up with a really powerful artefact weapon, they may not need any enchant weapon scrolls. They now have a great deal more enchant armor scrolls. The reverse can happen if you get a very powerful artefact body armor or enough artefact secondary armors. The same argument can apply to unarmed characters, of course. This can happen now with characters who find artefact body armor - you now have 10 enchant armor scrolls and only need say 5 in total, depending on your secondary slots. The extra scrolls just go unused, and I don't see this as a problem. May make CPA slightly more strong.

Personally, I don't believe that to be a problem: let the player enchant their armor to max, and use the artefact weapon.

[duvessa]

I agree, unarmed characters and conjurers are underpowered and they should have 15 more AC than characters that use weapons.

[Psiweapon]

It may be because it's 5 am where I live, but I totally am with you guys on this one.

[and into]

I think duvessa hit the nail on the head here. It is good to simplify things, so long as there aren't compelling game play/balance reasons to keep them separate. But in this case I think there are. I can't see a way to merge these items that wouldn't really profoundly alter balance between different existing character types, and the benefit from the proposed scroll merge seems pretty small.

[Bim]

For once I actually agree with Duvessa, it'd be a big buff to magic/unarmed characters which don't really need it, and I don't see any other good reasons for it.

[Psiweapon]

Merge it with recharging too! %D

Also, on topic: ALL characters have use for a weapon, except (mostly) unarmed characters, and then those favour light and medium armor, so their armor is less of an enchant scroll sink.

[Bim]

Also, on topic: ALL characters have use for a weapon, except (mostly) unarmed characters, and then those favour light and medium armor, so their armor is less of an enchant scroll sink.

I agree, although as a magic user I never really bother enchanting anything because if I need to bash popcorn I can just use whatever early ego branded foo I find, and then later on I'll either use a staff or an artefact.

[tasonir]

I agree, unarmed characters and conjurers are underpowered and they should have 15 more AC than characters that use weapons.

Because it's totally possible for a scale mail to be enchanted to +20? The only armors that are difficult to enchant to max are CPA and GDA, both of which tend to be a bit too heavy for casters and unarmed characters. Not that you can't make it work, but I'd say it's definitely rare.

[Hurkyl]

I agree, unarmed characters and conjurers are underpowered and they should have 15 more AC than characters that use weapons.

Because it's totally possible for a scale mail to be enchanted to +20? The only armors that are difficult to enchant to max are CPA and GDA, both of which tend to be a bit too heavy for casters and unarmed characters. Not that you can't make it work, but I'd say it's definitely rare.

How much AC you have when you're raiding Zot:5 is not the only concern: how much AC you have when you're entering, say, Lair:1 is arguably a more important balance point.

(of course, it won't be anywhere near a 15 AC difference there...)

[reaver]

I brought this up in ##crawl-dev the other day (for like five minutes) and rchandra metioned:

17:48:49 <rchandra> I think it [Combining enchant scrolls together] would make characters more similar and overly encourage "builds"
17:49:29 <rchandra> armour choices in particular depend a lot on number of enchant armour found

It's not like people don't already make AC damage trade-offs, there's whether to train Armour or Damage skills; whether to buy ?enchant armour or ?enchant weapon from a shop; whether to use a ring of slaying or a ring of AC; whether to use an weapon with high enchantment or a weapon with protection; etc. Keeping these scrolls seperate seems more interesting than combining them.

[cerebovssquire]

Bcause it's totally possible for a scale mail to be enchanted to +20? The only armors that are difficult to enchant to max are CPA and GDA, both of which tend to be a bit too heavy for casters and unarmed characters. Not that you can't make it work, but I'd say it's definitely rare.

It's rare that you have enough enchant armour scrolls to enchant even MDA + all aux armour scrolls until very late in the game - and some unarmed/conjurer characters will use heavier armour than MDA (FDA/IDA/PDA for instance will use more). This doesn't affect only CPA and GDA, and you can't just look at how it affects weapons/armour upon ascension, you also need to consider at what point in the game characters have a fully-enchanted kit.

[XuaXua]

Combining the scrolls might encourage scroll use, or discourage hoarding.

Then-again, it might have the reverse effect and I did get a 'D' in Intro to Psychology.

[tasonir]

Alright, it's a fair enough point that while you'll likely max out at the end, you'd be able to max out earlier if they're merged, if you're not using enchant weapon scrolls at all (unarmed/conjurers).